A Melbourne Masonic mystery part 1: The University Chancellor

The Masonic Library, Archive and Museum in Melbourne together are full of historical gold. Finding the means to preserve and admire these treasures will benefit both the Craft and the public.

1854

Amid the excitement and disorder of the Victorian gold rush, Melbourne's elite created ‘the University.’

The foundation stone was laid on Monday 3 July 1854 by the recently arrived Lieutenant-Governor Charles Hotham with Justice Redmond Barry, resplendent in his immaculate chancellerian robes – and silk stockings, as master of ceremonies.

Professor Richard Selleck in his book The Shop, says the ceremony began with a procession from the city to the muddy paddock where the University was to be built. It was intended, he imagined, to follow a familiar pattern with a prominent role for Freemasons.

Selleck’s assumption about the Freemasons was reasonable, but was it correct?

Soon after the ceremony, a Freemason calling himself ‘Hiram’ wrote to the Argus, the most read paper in the city, complaining that the Freemasons had in effect been uninvited. He asserted that this would not have happened if La Trobe had been Lieutenant-Governor and he wanted an explanation.

I came across this controversy in preparing a review of Professor John Barnes’ 2017 book, La Trobe: traveller, writer, governor.  I don’t think anyone noticed it before. So, was Selleck correct or Hiram? The answer turns to be neither, but the event did signal some kind of change. The story suggests that the Masonic presence in Melbourne’s early history has been somewhat neglected and that further research, building on Peter Thornton’s comprehensive work (A Century of Union: The United Grand Lodge of Victoria and The History of Freemasonry in Victoria) can yield a better understanding of both Melbourne and Freemasonry in that period.

Redmond Barry as Chancellor, 1878.
Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria.

Redmond Barry

Redmond Barry is famous for sentencing Ned to the gallows, but Ned hadn’t been born in July 1854. He was an Irish aristocrat whose ancestors became Protestants in the time of Cromwell. Their English allegiance was central to their identity but they were Irish nonetheless. They were Conservative and ‘high Tory’ in their politics and ‘wedded to the property interests of the landed gentry.’ The Barrys played a leading role in local Freemasonry.

In contrast with the present, Freemasonry in this period should not be regarded only as being a prominent fraternal organisation. In the words of R A Berman in The Architects of Eighteenth-Century English Freemasonry, 1720 – 1740,  ‘It should also be considered as a force that helped to shape the structure and development of the social, economic and political evolution that was then in progress.’

Barry was born in 1813 in County Cork, graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1837 and was admitted to the Irish Bar. He emigrated to Australia, landing in Sydney, then settling in Melbourne in 1839, establishing a practice in the minor courts. He became the Standing Council for Aborigines in 1841 advocating that they be tried before a jury which included Aboriginal people; an approach consistent with the values of 18^th Century Freemasons. He was Melbourne’s first solicitor-general in 1851 then elevated to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 1852. He was involved in almost every social, cultural and philanthropic activity in Victoria at the time of his death in 1880.

Barry was a prime founder of the University and Public Library placing his personal stamp on both. There would be no contemporary fiction in the Library but working men could come and freely learn and there would be no religious test at the University for the all-male students.

Professors could not be in holy orders nor could they lecture on religious topics - anywhere. La Trobe supported the institution and provided funding for it, wishing to avoid the interdenominational rivalry which plagued the University of Sydney.

Barry became a Freemason in Dublin. In Melbourne, he affiliated with Australia Felix Lodge of Hiram No 349 in the Irish Constitution (later No 4 in the Victorian Constitution) on 30 April 1847 (8 years after his arrival) remaining a quiet member.

Barry’s reputation has undergone a revision, highlighted by the current University of Melbourne Chancellor, Allan Myers AC QC who presented the 2016 Redmond Barry Lecture. To quote Myers, ‘I have called Barry cruel, pessimistic, fearful, hypocritical, vain and impetuous. Barry’s social views and political philosophies have little, if any, importance for Australian society in 2016. But an energetic devotion to the advancement of institutions which promote education, scientific knowledge and access to the arts is as important today as it was 150 years ago.’

We can both acknowledge his weaknesses and celebrate his achievements.

Melbourne in about 1854 via Wikimedia.

Part 2 will describe something of the role of Freemasonry in early Melbourne and the changing plans for the University’s foundation stone laying ceremony.